Tiny scrap solar pieces – to 5V @ 1A
More info below:
A 2lb lot of broken solar panels arrived the other day.
I was pleasantly surprised at the 2 x 1lb bags…over half a dozen full panels of 6″x6″ were included with lots of smaller pieces.
After sorting through into bags, many pieces seemed too small to do anything with. On testing one such piece, I found that it would deliver 0.55V and 130mA. In fact, all of the pieces above a certain size gave those readings !
Connecting to anywhere on the front and anywhere on the back of each, the pieces were assembled to put out 1V at 1A per set. Each set sits glued onto an old bathroom tile.
Altogether, the output is 5.4V at just over 1A.
The back of a PC keyboard made a good base to sit everything on and the little legs on the back are down, to give an angle to the sun.
A diode was added to protect against anything like the sun going in and batteries being charged feeding back into the panels…giving approx 5.15V output, ideal also for USB.
An SJR or other inverter is intended to be tried out, Also a Bedini SSG and whatever else works well from 5V at 1A.
The panel pieces came from Silicon Solar and cost $12.50 per 1lb bag.